High-yield harvests are the watermark
of the Murray basin,source of eight
billion dollars in agriculturalincome
nearly half the country's production.In
Barmah Forest,river red gums are sawed
into crossties (below). Because irrigation
has disruptedseasonalflooding vital to
the tree's life cycle, logging is now
reduced. JaniceKemich serves tea to
husband Rex (below, at left) and helper
Paul Gibbs on their ricefarm near
Deniliquin.The region will produce
940,000 tons of rice this year.
town's 250 people. Droughts, which fol
lowed with relentless regularity, were even
more devastating.
Irrigation began tentatively on both sides
of the Murray in the 1880s. The Goulburn
Weir was built in 1890, opening 775,000
acres of fertile land; the Hume Dam, built in
1936, impounds an inland lake six times the
size of Sydney Harbour. Recently complet
ed Dartmouth Dam, which is even larger,
has, so far, assured the flow of the Murray
even in droughts.
Irrigation communities expanded dra-
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